JFSOCC

More of a brunette fan myself, but damn yes, this is the message I hope the world will one day get: Welfare states work well. Low crime, low income disparity, high education, high pay, great health (low infant death rates, high life-expectancy) And a fairly robust economy.In other words, everything that you would want for a high quality of life. and all it takes is high tax rates. who knew?

Not a great fan either. (blasphemy! I hear my high-school English teacher say)His prose maybe considered the be the greatest, but if you have to make characters who are evil because they are jewish or black, then you're not just racist, but also not very good at characterization. His Kings are noble (mostly) Shylock (the jew) is bad, because he is a usurer. (because why not use stereotypes) In Titus there is this famous line "Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did Would I perform if I might have my will. If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul." Said by a moor (black man) why, because he was black and thus evil. And then there is people saying "oh, but racism was normal back then!" "think of the times" But as much as the racism bothers me, that's not what disqualifies his works from greatness for me. It's the fact that he uses one-dimensional characters in the first place. I mean, how one-dimensional can you get?

Well, I didn't win the lottery, so no last minute pay-pal 10k donation from me.

Like with any literary genre there is pulp and there is quality.

I finally watched 1984. I don't think it will surprise anyone when I say it's a downer.

Historians are coming to the conclusion that slavery cost more than it was worth. It's actually cheaper to have wage workers (payslaves) because you don't have to take care of them. Also the picture we have of slavery is distorted, in some societies, slaves had similar lives as what we would refer to as a middle class. there was even some upward mobility. (though, yes, obviously they were still slaves) interestingly enough, there are more slaves today than at any point before in human history.

Alright Opinionated piece coming up. which you could vehemently disagree with. I don't want to be a negative bastard, but some of the authors mentioned are awful, and I dismiss their popularity on the idea that those who like them haven't read proper quality fantasy. I mean, Feist, really? Over the top, linear, plot driven drivel, deus ex up the wazoo, non-existent character arcs, completely unbelievable, mary sue. Ugh. I'm in 2 minds about George RR Martin. I read the first 3 chapters of game of thrones, I thought the writing was awful, clichéd. then I watched the TV series, and after the intial 8 or so episodes, I started to enjoy myself. So maybe I should have kept reading. Stephen P. Donaldson is another of those "popular" artists which I think suck. Pretentious, plot driven(if you're recognising a theme, yes, plot driven is bad and common) unrelatable protagonist, interspersed with bad poetry. Terry Goodkind. ALL the flaws! How this man managed to rack up a fanbase is beyond me. There are others which I dislike but at least those are due to preference, Ian C esselmont is one I don't enjoy, but I at least like the way he is different, his characters are strong and memorable, and he breaks convention nicely where he can get away with it. Tolkien too, I love his world-building ability, he tells a great story, but he doesn't tell it well. Now I have read quite a bit of fantasy I've read a lot of crap fantasy. (I read the entire Magic the Gathering series. it's what got me into fantasy) some of it I even enjoyed. (hey, I was young!) But if you enjoy good fantasy with at least some literary value, I recommend Patrick Rothfuss, Peter V Brett, Robin Hobb,(don't bother with the liveship books) Trudi Cannavan,(don't bother with the age of the five books) and to a lesser extent Jaqueline Carey. (too much sex in her books for me, but otherwise solid) And I'm going to shoe-horn in James Clavell, who wrote a great historical fiction book five times. (Tai-Pan, Noble House, Gai-Jin, Shogun, King Rat)

I don't need to be godlike awesome, but I do want the protagonist to matter more than his help. And I want to see that in the gameplay.

the commandos games alloyed you to look at the map from 4 angles, and they were isometric (no?)

In BGEE I had an chaotic evil mage join me, I'm not playing an evil character so when he died I didn;t care (how very meta, and how very evil of me )

Is there any other way to read it?

Patrick Rothfuss. I also disagree with most of the first page of this thread.

We'll start with this: http://www.independe...re-2333286.html So a crazy rich man built a 5 star Hotel, one that sits mostly empty. I also thought these reviews were pretty interesting: http://www.tripadvis...html#UR75699650 - Maybe if there were people would actually start doing something about it. Yet the food situation in Palestine is far from idealhttp://972mag.com/fi...ser-look/52392/ Also, the reason I dismiss your hotel example as unscientific (because it's incidental) is because this prestige project thing is a common tactic to fool others. it's something to point at and say "see things are not so bad, focus your camera on this" when right next door awful things are going on.

Is it like a Fight Club? First rule of JFSOCC's club is that there is no JFSOCC's club. I could tell you but I'd have to kill you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldTjXFlWtkM&t=0m36s

I've set up my own secret society, in fact I've set up two, not that either knows of the other's existence. Like-minded people who believe intelligence and wisdom are key to progress. I've also set up a trade organisation. I started out in -Big Big City One- But I want to broaden my horizons and that of my organisations, And the port city of -Big Big City 2- seems like an excellent place. I'm charming, friendly, polite, a great friend and a terrifying enemy. If you stand in my way I will destroy you, your family, your business, and the soil you walked on, just to be sure. But I will do so quietly.

While we cannot doubt that gameplay options take time to implement and balance, we can very well doubt that more options will make the game appeal to "a broader audience". Will any RPG fans skip over this game because you can't turn off friendly fire, if it has a gripping story and solid mechanics? I'd say no. Apparently they would. Two things: 1) This is true to some extent for BG2, because combat mechanics never was its strong point. From what we've heard about the classes, PE will offer more tactical depth than BG2 (ToEE was cited as an influence), and that makes balancing more important. Of course flawed balance often only becomes noticeable until you've experimented a bit with the game (not even necessarily replaying), but that's hardly an excuse for bad balancing. 2.) There's no reason to copy the flaws of its spiritual antecessors, but there is every reason to try and improve on them. 1) "Obsidian Entertainment and our legendary game designers Chris Avellone, Tim Cain, and Josh Sawyer are excited to bring you a new role-playing game for the PC. Project Eternity (working title) pays homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past: Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment." 2) It's not about copying the flaws of those games; it's about realizing that perfect balance is not really that important to the core audience so making sure that every option you add is balanced is a waste of resources. Design the game to be played one way and then add a bunch of options for the people that want no FF, permadeath, limited saves, etc. If those options make the game really hard/easy then whatever; it's the player's choice to play that way, let them. Just because you're inspired by the old doesn't mean you can't innovate.

Alright. fine. my views. -Myth one. Piracy is hurting business. The Dirty little secret is that piracy is mainstream. 80% of people with access to the internet have admitted to at one time or another having pirated something. Despite the music industry, the film industry and television claiming it is hurting their sales since the advent of tapes, their respective industries have grown faster than the economy in that time. A recent study focusing on music piracy found that pirates are more likely to buy albums than those who do not pirate, spend more, more often and are more likely to come to concerts. this would suggest the problem has more to do with access to affordable products than malicious intent. -Myth two, Copy-right protection and ever stronger forms of DRM are the only thing companies can do to protect themselves against theft. Well, this one is easy. there is yet to be a security feature that hasn't eventually been beaten. In the continual arms-race between those who crack game files and those who protect disks, the only real loser so far has been the legitimate users, who paid money for products that have come with problems based on their security. Infamous is sony's decision to add malware to their audio-cd's so if the cd's would be played on a computer instead of a "normal" cd-player it would damage the computer. They lost a big lawsuit over that. Always on DRM or online activations which limit players to playing these games only when they have a connection. It also gives some of us the idea that we're being policed. I have, in the past, bought a game with always on DRM, not installed it, but then chosen to run a pirated copy instead. I'm arguing that some forms of copy right protection have actually harmed sales. Outsourcing your security to companies like starforce also means that part of the price legitimate users pay is for a system that causes them more grief than that it does to safeguard their product, as illegitimate bans based on false positives have harmed many a users experience. I can't play spore any more, despite paying for it. not that I would want to, what a let-down that game was. Day1 DLC is a form of DRM. People get an incomplete game despite paying for the full game. this is fraud plain and simple. Again, legitimate users get caught in the crossfire of the most pointless arms race in the world. Sites like Good Old Games.com are proving that DRM free games are actually something a company can turn a profit with. Some companies have experimented with different models are finding that things like free to play with micro-transactions is actually better for business than selling single copies with expensive protections. Web-based game companies like innogames are making millions. -Myth three, stricter laws and law-enforcement will end piracy. The vilification of the user, the internet, and services which are conducive to file-sharing I think is a real problem and the only thing that needs addressing. SOPA type laws which have far-reaching consequences because they are vaguely worded and broad in applicability serve to put a serious amount of control into industries which are better off innovating their models. Instated and proposed laws in recent times have led to faulty take-down notices on creative works that were not infringing on copyright (using bots), abuse against competition, a break on innovation-inhibiting the development of tools that empower society-, expensive and frivolous patent lawsuits, the imprisonment of 15 year old kids, the very questionable actions against service providers such as youtube, google, mega-upload and similar sites. which while undoubtedly used for piracy to greater or lesser extent, provide services which are not inherently criminal. These laws contain punishment and ill-treatment for those who themselves have nothing to do with piracy, such as Internet Service Providers. Furthermore, these laws are so broadly worded that they infringe on privacy rights, as they allow for spying on the user regardless of whether or not he is suspect. These laws do more harm than good. And, because the amount of cases is so large and so broad, it is impossible to police. Pirates will always find another way, moving on to ever more creative methods. (Such as the pirate bay introducing autonomous aircraft transmitting via high-altitudes) Not only are these laws harmful, they ultimately do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to prevent piracy, which is why they are supposed to exist in the first place. I find it vile that some developers now claim that I didn't buy their game, I bought a license to play their game. that's bull****. and a German supreme court rightly called it bull****. To me this shows that the problem is not piracy, but rather an industry which is using outdated models struggling to stay competitive. If companies bring out affordable games, music, movies, do so without adding "features" that harm the end-user, release everywhere at the same time, don't limit supply, don't localise prices, I think the "problem" with piracy would be minimized. Piracy isn't going to go away with stricter laws or law-enforcement. Piracy isn't going away with better security, and Piracy isn't a industry ending problem. A crime consists of three elements, means, motive and opportunity. currently all efforts are against means and opportunity, it's time to focus on motive.

Operation Paperclip was an effort to bring as many german scientists over the the United states before other nations (the Soviets) could get their hands on them. For the longest time Germany was seen as the centre of science, afterwards it became the states. So yeah, you did have some nazi's come over, like Werner vond Braun, but hey, without him it would have taken longer for the US to develop their space program. Like Tom Lerher said "Once ze rockets are up, who cares where zey come down, zat's not my department, says Werner von Braun"

I keep seeing the same argument for freedom of choice. It's not about freedom of choice vs "play the game this way" but as long as it continues to be framed that way, people are going to automatically agree. (because duh) What I'm saying is "make the game such that people don't feel the need to save scum" If you can do that without taking away player freedoms such as saving anywhere, all the better. I'm not interested in taking away power from the player. never my desire. Maybe when that is understood we can move on and think on possibilities on how to do that.

Beyond Good and Evil probably stands as my favourite game of all time, despite some of it's flaws. Christophe Heral is also doing the music for the sequel

They should have made it optional. :D

true, but what if you have the same expertise?

I don't enjoy the idea of being overshadowed by my party members. That's mildly discouraging when they're another class, but when they're the same class it gives you the feeling of "why bother". I do enjoy some ego flattery, after all. Edit: I meant companion characters, obviously non-companion NPC's could be quite challenging

tbh I think most of the hate against QFGV was that it was 2.5D. it was it's own game, and they made it different from the first four. (I played a tiny bit of the first before the outdated graphics of the first game made me quit.)